Justice Gilmar Mendes of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) ruled on Friday that the decree raising the Bolsa Família welfare payment by 15.04% breaks no electoral rules. In his view, the increase only updates the benefit for inflation. The payment floor rises from 600 to 691 reais.
The ruling answered a request filed the same day by the Advocacia-Geral da União, the federal government's legal office, asking the court to declare the decree constitutional. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced the raise, the first in four years, on Thursday, less than three weeks before the first round of the presidential election. The average payment rises from 675 to 777 reais, according to BBC Brasil. Payments start on October 19, between the first round and a possible runoff on October 25.
Mendes grounded the decision in the formula the government chose: the accumulated variation of the INPC, Brazil's benchmark consumer price index, from March 2023 to August 2026, measured at 15.04%. In the minister's words, the index "represents a mere mechanism to recover accumulated inflation, not a real increase".
"The measure does not create a new benefit, does not change eligibility criteria and does not expand the pool of beneficiaries. It is only an update of the values of payments under an already existing social program, through an objective monetary correction criterion," the justice wrote.
The case behind the ruling
The government's petition was filed in a case in which the STF ordered, starting in 2022, payment of the basic citizenship income to Brazilians in extreme poverty and poverty. As the case's rapporteur, Mendes ruled in June 2024 that the Bolsa Família, the country's main cash transfer program, is a stage in the gradual implementation of that right, with periodic value updates. One day before the decree, the public defender's office asked the court to press the executive branch on the pending update. Law 14,601 of 2023 allows corrections at intervals of no more than 24 months.
The AGU defended the decree in the same terms. "The decree does not create a new benefit, does not add a new category of beneficiaries, does not change the legal eligibility criteria and does not launch a social program," the office told the court.
Electoral pressure
The announcement date drew criticism. Presidential candidate Renan Santos of the Missão party asked the Superior Electoral Court, the TSE, to suspend the raise, arguing it serves campaign purposes. At the electoral court, Justice Mendonça rejected one request to block the raise and dismissed another suit without ruling on its legality.
Rafael Cortez, a political scientist at Tendências Consultoria, told BBC Brasil the raise is another economic measure aimed at electoral impact, though this one is allowed by the law governing the program. He recalled that in 2022 then president Jair Bolsonaro pushed a constitutional amendment to expand benefits in an election year, the so-called PEC Kamikaze, which the STF struck down in 2024.
According to the Planning Ministry, the raise will cost 5.8 billion reais in 2026 and nearly 23 billion in 2027. The new values begin to be paid on October 19, six days before a possible runoff. At the Federal Audit Court, the TCU, a request by prosecutors to suspend the raise is still awaiting a ruling.